Cardiac growth after heart transplantation (HTx) in children has been reported to be normal in the long-term follow-up. The aim of our study was to evaluate ventricular volumes, mass and function in a cohort of pediatric HTx patients using cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR).

Seventy-five pediatric HTx patients (mean age 14.0 ± 4.2 years, 26 females) were assessed by CMR 11.2 ± 5.4 years after HTx (time interval between HTx and CMR at least 1 year). Right (RV) and left ventricular (LV) volumes and LV mass were derived from short-axis cine images. The results were compared with a healthy reference population of 79 patients (mean age 13.7 ± 3.7 years, 29 females, p = 0.30) from the German Competence Network for Congenital Heart Defects. LV strain measurements were performed using CMR feature tracking (FT) software (TomTec, Germany) and were compared with a group of 46 healthy controls (mean age 13.3 ± 3.5 years, 21 females).

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